Contacts:

Ruichao Xu, DTU Nanotech, ruichao.xu@nanotech.dtu.dk, building 344, room 130

Anders Lei, DTU Nanotech, anders.lei@nanotech.dtu.dk, building 344, room 130

Karen Birkelund, DTU Nanotech, karen.birkelund@nanotech.dtu.dk, building 344, room 030.

The core of the ELBA (Eliminating Batteries) project is to fabricate energy harvesters with high power output. These energy harvesters are based on the piezoelectric transduction principle. The piezoelectric material used in this case is screen printed Pb(Zr_xTi_1−x)O₃, PZT thick film. Due to the high temperature sintering to solidify the thick film, it is essential to separate the PZT and the silicon layer to prevent diffusion. Currently a very thick layer of Pt is used as the diffusion barrier; however, Pt is both expensive and conductive. A conducting diffusion barrier severely limits the harvester design possibilities; therefore a non-conducting diffusion barrier is needed.

The students are expected to design structures to test out possible candidates for the diffusion barrier, fabricate these test structures in the Danchip cleanroom and characterize them both electrically and in SEM microscopes.